Alone, the twins didn’t speak to each other. Houston just sat in a chair, her head down, while Blair hovered near the door.
“I guess we should get out there and cut the cake,” Blair said tentatively. “You and Taggert—.”
Houston came out of her chair looking as if she had suddenly been turned into a harpy. “You can’t even call him by his name, can you?” she said, anger in every word. “You think he has no feelings; you’ve dismissed him and therefore you think you have a right to do whatever you want to him.”
Surprised, Blair stepped back from her sister’s anger. “Houston, what I did, I did for you. I want to see you happy.”
Houston’s fists were clenched at her sides and she advanced on Blair as if she meant to challenge her to a fight. “Happy? How can I be happy when I don’t even know where my husband is? Thanks to you, I may never know the meaning of happiness.”
“Me? What have I done except try everything in my power to help you? I’ve tried to help you come to your senses and see that you didn’t have to marry that man for his money. Kane Taggert—.”
“You really don’t know, do you?” Houston interrupted her. “You have humiliated a proud, sensitive man in front of hundreds of people, and you aren’t even aware of what you’ve done.”
“I assume you’re talking about what happened at the altar? I did it for you, Houston. I know you love Leander and I was willing to take Taggert just to make you happy. I’m so sorry about what I’ve done to you. I never meant to make you so unhappy. I know I’ve ruined your life, but I did try to repair what I’d done.”
“Me, me, me. That’s all you can say. You’ve ruined my life and all you can talk about is yourself. You know I love Leander. You know what an awful man Kane is. For the last week or so, you’ve spent every waking moment with Leander, and the way you talk about him is as if he were a god. Every other word you say is, ‘Leander.’ I think you did mean well this morning: you wanted to give me the best man.”
Houston leaned toward her sister. “Leander may set your body on fire, but he never did anything for me. If you hadn’t been so involved with yourself lately, and could think that I do have some brains of my own, you’d have seen that I’ve fallen in love with a good, kind, thoughtful man—admittedly he’s a little rough around the edges, but then, haven’t you always complained that my edges are a little too smooth?”
Blair sat down. “You love him? Taggert? You love Kane Taggert? But I don’t understand. You’ve always loved Leander. For as long as I can remember, you’ve loved him.”
Some of Houston’s anger seemed to leave her and she turned away to look out the window. “True, I decided I wanted him when I was six years old. I think it became a goal to me, like climbing a mountain. I should have set my sights on Mt. Rainier. At least, once I’d climbed it, it would have been done. I never knew what I was going to do with Leander after we were married.”
“But you do know what you’ll do with Taggert?”
Houston looked back at her sister and smiled. “Oh, yes. I very much know what I’m going to do with him. I am going to make a home for him, a place where he’ll be safe, a place where I’ll be safe, where I can do whatever I want.”
Blair stood and it was her turn to clench her fists. “I guess you couldn’t have bothered to take two minutes to tell me this, could you? I have been through Hades in the last weeks. I have worried about you, spent whole days crying about what I’ve done to my sister, and here you tell me that you’re in love with this King Midas.”
“Don’t you say anything against him!” Houston shouted, then calmed. “He’s the kindest, gentlest man and very generous. And I happen to love him very much.”
“And I have been through agony because I was worried about you. You should have told me!”
Houston idly ran her hand along the edge of the desk that sat in the middle of the room. “I guess I was so jealous of your love match that I didn’t want to think about you.”
“Love match?!” Blair exploded. “I think I’m Leander’s Mt. Rainier. I can’t deny that he does things to me physically, but that’s all he wants from me. We’ve spent days together in the operating room, but I feel there’s a part of Leander I don’t know. He doesn’t really let me get close to him. I know so little about him. He decided he wanted me, so he went after me, using every method he could to get me.”
“But I see the way you look at him. I never felt inclined to look at him like that.”
“That’s because you never saw him in an operating room. If you’d seen him in there, you would have—.”
“Fainted, most likely,” Houston said. “Blair, I am sorry that I didn’t talk to you. I probably knew that you were in agony, but what happened hurt. I had been engaged to Leander for, it seemed to me, most of my life, yet you walked in and took him in just one night. And Lee was always calling me his ice princess, and I was so worried about being a cold woman.”
“And you’re no longer worried about that?” Blair asked.
The color in Houston’s cheeks heightened. “Not with Kane,” she whispered.
“You really do love him?” Blair asked, still not able to comprehend this fact. “You don’t mind the food flying everywhere? You don’t mind his loudness or the other women?”
Blair could have bitten out her tongue.
“What other women?” Houston asked, eyes narrowed. “And Blair, you’d better tell me.”
Blair took a deep breath. It would have been all right to tell Houston what she had seen before she’d married the man, but now it was too late.
Houston advanced on her sister. “If you even consider managing my life again as you did today at the altar, I’ll never speak to you again. I am an adult, and you know something about my husband, and I want to know what it is.”
“I saw him in the garden kissing Pamela Fenton just before the wedding,” Blair said all in one breath.